I Never Could Leave Well Enough Alone.

First, a completely gratuitous picture of The Dog, 8 months old and such a good girl!

Completely unrelated to my last post, merely coincidental, I have re-upped on the Big Double-W to lose some of the stress weight I’ve gained in the last three years. The plan has changed a lot since I last used it, and I could really use some structure to get me back on track (read: stop me binging on bread products and butter all day long). The plan offers up some meal ideas to get beginners started on the road to more nutritional bang for their caloric buck. But I am no beginner.

So, here’s breakfast:

1 cup oatmeal, 1 T chopped walnuts, 4 T fat-free plain Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup fresh blueberries (mine are frozen, but unsweetened so it’s all good). The instructions say to put the walnuts in the oatmeal, the berries in the yogurt, and enjoy.

I ate this yesterday without adulteration, and it is a delicious and quite satisfying breakfast. I used steel cut oats instead of rolled, personal preference. They have the same point value, so no problem there. I also put it all in the same bowl; more bowls does not make me feel like I’m eating more food, and why wouldn’t I put blueberries in oatmeal? I ask you.

But here’s my thing: When you read it, and assemble it in front of you, it just looks/sounds so…austere. Look, eating healthy, nutritious, seasonal, local food does not have to be some spartan proposition, even if weight loss is the goal. There is a daily allotment of points and a weekly allotment of extra points. The weekly allotment is key, in my opinion, because that’s where you play.

Today’s breakfast is a liiiiitle different. First of all, I checked the database, and found I could add 1/2 cup of blueberries to the meal and not change the point value. Blueberries are so full of flavor and nutrition, the more the better. Plus it automatically adds a fruit/veg serving to your day. Bonus.

Then I thought, why not bust those puppies open in the microwave? Their flavor really comes alive when they have softened and released some juice. Done.

Now, time to play with flavor enhancement. Those extra points are there to be used, so use them, but really make it count. For just one extra point, you get yourself a tablespoon of maple syrup. A Tablespoon. Pour it into a measuring spoon and just look at it. That’s a lot of maple-y goodness. The tang of the plain yogurt can put some people off, and maple syrup is just the trick for that.

Now here’s today’s breakfast:

Organic Steel Cut Oats, Local Blueberries (frozen the day they were picked, both by me), Organic Plain Greek Yogurt (local brand), Local Maple Syrup, and Chopped Walnuts (very healthy nut). The oats are underneath all that blueberry, yogurt and maple flavor, just waiting for me to dig in.

Now that’s nowhere near spartan or austere, and because I cooked the oats yesterday, it didn’t take me more than 5 minutes to pull it together. So that excuse is gone, you time-crunchers.

So that’s it. This is real food, this is good food, and, according to the plan, this is “weight loss” food. Sweet.